Lot 126

Ovid, Metamorphoses, in Latin verse, illuminated manuscript on vellum and paper [Bohemia (or perhaps Austria), second half of the fifteenth century]

Estimate

8,000 - 12,000 GBP

bidding is closed

Description

Vellum and Paper

44 leaves (last 6 leaves blank), 315mm. by 215mm., complete, collation: i^{11 (first a singleton), ii^{10, iii^{12, iv^{11 (last blank and cancelled), first leaf vellum else paper, single column, ruled in pink for 30 lines in black ink in an angular late gothic hand, running titles, marginal headings and paragraph marks in red, one-line initials in red or blue,}}}} three large initials (5- to 7-line; fols.1rv and 12v) in soft blue, green or pink scrolling foliage on tessellated burnished gold grounds punctuated with painted flowers and flower-shaped pouncing, terminating in borders in scrolling prickly vine-leaves with bezants and baubels with flower-shaped pounce-marks, illuminated frontispiece with a vast initial 'I', 85mm. high, in same, with smaller initial 'D' enclosing liquid gold scrolls superimposed over foot of initial 'I', accompanied by ten lines of ornamental capitals in liquid gold, numerous interlinear and marginal glosses in a tiny and neat contemporary hand, space left for initial on fol.26v, some scratches to centre of initial on fol.1v, slight flaking from some ornamental capitals, latter part of volume dampstained at top and slightly trimmed with slight loss to border decoration at top of first leaf, else good and fresh condition, modern red velvet over pasteboards

Provenance

provenance

1. Most probably produced in Bohemia in the second half of the fifteenth century: watermark a close variant of Briquet 2562 (Salzburg 1468, with similar examples recorded from Bavaria 1467, Graz 1469 and Regensburg 1496) and, while the distinctive border-work points equally to Prague (cf. the Zamojskych Bible: K. Stejskal and P. Voit, Iluminované rukopisy doby husitské, 1990, no.28, pls.50-51) and Vienna (cf. the Collegium Ducale Missal, MS Ludwig V.6: T. Kren, Illuminated Manuscripts of Germany and Central Europe, 2009, p.100), the gold ornamental capitals strongly suggest the influence of the imperial workshops of Prague (cf. the Bible from the Dyson Perrins collection, sold in our rooms 29 November 1960, lot 118, pls.26-7: Warner, Catalogue, 1920, pp. 294-5; and the evangeliary now ÖNB Ms.1182: J. Krása, Die Handschriften König Wenzels IV, 171, pl.78).

2. Einar Munksgaard (1840-1948) of Copenhagen.

Catalogue Note

text

The Metamorphoses is one of the most widely-read and influential works of classical literature. It was written before 8AD. by the Roman poet Ovid (43 BC.-17/18 AD.), and is a mythical history of the world from its creation to the deification of Julius Caesar, drawing much of its material from Greek myth. It is an acerbic mock-epic on love, with its main character, Cupid, ridiculing authority and exposing the buffoonery of the other gods. In opposition to the strict morality of Virgil, Ovid argues that the world is in a constant state of change, and that the gods are lustful and often cruel, bringing chaos not order to the lives of men. It was popular throughout the Middle Ages, but the birth of humanism in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries saw a sudden re-interest in the text, with numerous de luxe copies, such as the present manuscript, being produced for aristocratic patrons throughout Europe.

The present manuscript includes the first three books of the text: (i) fol.1r, on the Creation of the World, with Jupiter's rise to power over the gods, the war of the gods with the giants and the legends of Daphne's transformation into a laurel and Io's into a heifer; (ii) fol.12v, the story of Phaeton, his sisters and their transformation into trees, Cycnus' transformation into a swan, the legend of Calisto, Coronis and the birth of Aesculapius and the rape of Europa; (iii) fol.26v, the story of Cadmus, the transformation of Actaeon into a Stag, the birth of Bacchus, and the stories of Narcissus and Pentheus.